Eternal circle of Zarathustra
by Evangilist
Summary: This is my perception of the events that might happen after Xenosaga 2, in 3rd person view point. I'm going to try the style of shifting my viw points among three characters, Albedo, Shion and Chaos. Please read and review!
1. Albedo's lot

Disclaimer: I do not own Xenosaga or any of its characters, sadly, fortunately, this piece of fanfiction still belongs to me! ) It's quite short though but I prefer giving a sample of my writing so that people can criticize certain aspects first before I produce longer, more substantial chapters. Anyway, hope you enjoy it and do review! Thanks!

Albedo wondered whether this was really what he wanted. After all, hadn't he wanted his existence to be erased from this world? Wasn't it what he wanted ever since he realized that he was the only one who wouldn't die and that once Rubedo and Nigredo were gone, he would be left alone? Why was it then that he actually felt a sense of relief that Rubedo hadn't managed to remove him totally from the world? With these burning questions in his mind, Albedo finally came to a startling conclusion and he felt like he did all that many years ago when he was told that he was the only one who could not be destroyed. He realized that perhaps, just perhaps, he did not understand himself as well as he thought he did.

Sitting in his E.S. machine, Albedo awaited orders from Wilhelm. He wanted to resist him, but Wilhelm had a strange sort of persuasive power that only he seemed to possess. It was this power that had lured Albedo out of the bliss of eternal oblivion. Albedo chuckled at the memory. There he was, sitting with his Kirschwassers, having this feast that he could only dream of, playing a game of Russian roulette, waiting for the bullet, so that he could feel it go right through him and know that he was indeed dead. Being dead had its advantages, he could do whatever he like, not that he didn't already do so in the living world, but it was just not the same in the afterlife. As painful as it was doing whatever he liked in the living world, knowing that Rubedo hated his very action, resignedly building up his hatred so that Rubedo may find it in his heart to kill him; it was equally tranquil behaving as he pleased in the afterlife, knowing that finally, he was the person lost and not the person who remained.

Albedo remembered that it was around the third attempt at the trigger when Wilhelm suddenly appeared in front of him. He knew who he was at first sight; after all, who didn't know Wilhelm,CEO of Vector industries? Albedo had even tried to model himself after him once, after knowing from someone that Wilhelm was highly sought after by many ladies and was probably the most powerful and influential person in the whole of the galaxy. He was about 16 in human years then, and he stopped after a while. It was not because of Wilhelm's declining popularity that Albedo stopped mimicking him, heck, there wasn't even any point in his life where Wilhelm's popularity had even suffered the smallest amount of decline; there was even a point when they made a board game after him! ('The trials of Wilhelm', that was what it was called…if Albedo remembered correctly.) It was just that, after his encounter with the first real woman, Albedo realized that he much rather preferred the realians to real women. Real women were pesky and bothersome, but the Kirschwassers just did whatever they were told. Destroying them was one of his greatest pastime when he was alive, the look on their faces as their system was corrupted gave Albedo immeasurable joy. As a young boy, Albedo was already very fascinated with death and after he learnt that he was the only one who could not be destroyed, he found destroying others just to satisfy his needs for physical damage very appealing indeed.

At the moment when Wilhelm appeared before Albedo in the afterlife, he looked exactly the same as he did so many years ago when Albedo was mimicking every detail of his appearance from the magazine, The Man behind Vector Industries. Albedo wondered if Wilhelm wasn't really human after all, perhaps that was why the Testaments did his bidding? When Wilhelm spoke, Albedo shuddered; it was not that he feared the man, it was the fact that the person he had placed as his idol in his more adventurous youth was standing before him in the afterlife which spooked him. The surreal quality of the experience. Albedo wondered if he was not hallucinating as he stared at Wilhelm with a transfixed gaze, though still managing to hold his composure.Albedo was usually the first to speak,but at that moment he was so in awe of the presence of the man before himthat his mouth seemed temporarily unable to form comprehensible words.

"Albedo, my young friend, it's time for you to take the stage again. If you are willing to do so, of course." Wilhelm uttered those words with such conviction that it seemed almost as though he was sure Albedo couldn't deny him, and Albedo thought the same way. Yet he wasn't going to give up his afterlife without a fight. Especially since he had worked so hard to attain it. Furthermore, he was the last person on the earth who want others to think that he was one who took up offers from others readily without resisting. Ultimately, he just did not want to look like a blabbering fool in front of Wilhem.

"Wilhelm." Albedo said, nodding his head. "What makes you think I would give up my eternal oblivian for a mere person such as yourself?"

"The pieces are moving, Albedo. Why warn Rubedo if you're not going to protect him? Furthermore, the task I require of you is for you to delve into the realian's database again, and you must admit it was quite a…pleasurable experience." Wilhelm replied, looking at Albedo with such a penetrating gaze that it seemed to be searching his very soul.

"What do you wish to look for? It's not going to work…I've tried it already. There is nothing more left in the 100-series. As for Rubedo, he can handle himself around Nigredo and if he wishes to be foolish, then so be it."

"Now surely, you don't believe that Albedo? I am having a meeting with the Testaments 3 days from now. I do hope you will enter the stage, it would be such a shame otherwise." Wilhem concluded, and as suddenly as he had appeared, he disappeared.

So it was, that Albedo finallydeciding to give in tothe request of Wilhelm, found himself seated in his E.S. awaiting orders. He did not know the full details of what he had to do yet, but Wilhelm told him to wait and he would be given instructions. Albedo felt sure he was being manipulated, yet somehow, he didn't really mind. He was eagerly anticipating the day when he could rummage through the 100-series again. She had felt so good then; perhaps this was the same reason why Rubedo had fallen for Sakura.

"Ma peche" Albedo whispered to the wind, as he waited in the shadows. It was not long before he heard voices and he could distinctly make them out as the testaments, the same people who were subordinates to Wilhelm and the ones who had given him the power to create the eternal chain. Being destroyed and being dead very different, being destroyed and fragmented into a million pieces felt like you were floating in eternal limbo with nowhere to go, whereas death felt as though you were in paradise; Albedo was thankful to the testaments for bringing him back so that Rubedo could properly dispose of him, but he still felt that they were mindless idiots who only did Wilhelm's bidding without thinking of their self-interests first. He wondered if he was going to be like one of them.

"Y data…lower level of the unconscious…Unus Mundus"

Albedo managed to grasp a few words of what they were saying and the conversation intrigued him. Clearly, they were talking about the 100-series and they were discussing how to extract a more complete set of Y data out of her and they planned to do it using the Unus Mundus? Albedo wondered if he was the one who would be allowed to help, he did so love setting traps.

He was straining to listen in to the conversation better when the spotlight suddenly fell on him and he was immersed in brilliant white light, a dazzling white hood surrounded him.

"Oh gosh" Albedo thought, "I am going to be one of those idiots after all."

A/N: How was it? I hope you guys liked the first part…please review if you want to criticize on any part of my style and I'll try to make it better. Thanks!


	2. Allen gets drunk

Disclaimer: As usual, I don't own Xenosaga and any of its characters, although I would very much like to. This fanfiction is however, fortunately, mine.

Shion lay awake in bed thinking. It had been only a few days since she had parted with her brother and the rest, but already she missed them. Especially her brother. She felt like she had grown much closer to him ever since the fiasco with the Patriarch, and she missed him sorely. Shion knew that if this had been before the forced alliance with him, she probably would have detested thinking about him. After all, what he did to her, and to their parents was most abominable. It was his fault that they were in their current state, not living, yet not dead; and it was his fault that she had to suffer the trauma of it all. That, and she was a little scared of him. That he would leave once again, without a word, leaving her to fend for herself when she most trusted him; leaving her feeling betrayed. Of course, he had tried to remedy his mistake after the incident, but the way he went about it...Shion felt as though he did not understand. All she wanted was for him to be near, yet all he did was to stay as far away as possible, afraid that he would commit the same mistake of leaving his younger sister helpless and vulnerable.

Turning onto her other side, Shion thought she heard a noise outside her room. Rising up, she went outside to check, but saw nothing. She was about to close the door when she felt a hand close around her ankle. Startled, she leapt back in surprise and almost stepped on the person lying just outside her door.

"Allen!" She exclaimed, as she finally made out the appearance of the person lying on the floor, from the moonlight flooding out of her room. "What are you doing here?"

"I hic think that you hic" Allen muttered as he tried to lift himself from the floor, staggering from the effort. Even when he was finally in a upright position, his body swayed from left to right, and it seemed as though he was having difficulty standing, let alone in one spot.

"Allen...are you..." Shion asked, voicing out what she thought was the situation which seemed most likely for Allen's strange behaviour, and the unusual redness of his cheeks and forehead. "...drunk?"

"Drunk? hic I don't hic know what you are hic talking about...why would I hic be drunk?" Allen replied, before he suddenly placed his arms on Shion's shoulders to steady his balance. "but my head hic does hurt..."

Shion stared in bewilderment at Allen. She had never known him to be a drinker, but of course she had never noticed him much as a person anyway. Still, she had never seen him in this state before. It was a bit appalling and he stunk badly of beer. Shion furrowed her eyebrows at Allen, in deep consideration. Suppose he was pretending to be drunk for some weird reason? No...Allen was not that sort of person. But who gave him so much beer? It was not like Allen at all to take beer for himself, where would he get it anyway? A ton of questions spiraled through Shion's mind, and finally admitting that most of them probably could not be solved until she managed to get Allen sober again, she decided to allow him to rest in her room for a while.

Shion decided to contact Miyuki to bring Allen back to his room, in case she was unable to handle Allen all by herself, though she seriously doubted it. It took a while before Miyuki connected and when she did, Shion was surprised at her disheveled appearance and flushed cheeks. She wondered if Miyuki herself, was not drunk as well.

"Shion!" Miyuki exclaimed, when she realised who it was who was trying to connect with her. Shion wondered if it was her hallucination, or if Miyuki sounded a little distressed. Her suspicion was confirmed when Miyuki suddenly burst into a plethora of how she had gotten Allen drunk just to confirm her suspicions of him having a fondness for the chief and how he had managed to slip by her when she wasn't looking, and how he was now wandering the corridors in a drunken state.

"Miyuki!" Shion chided after listening to her story, "How could you do that? Allen's currently with me in my room and I'd appreciate it if you brought him back with you, thanks. I still can't believe you did that! There's no way Allen would like me. You better come right away!"

Disconnecting herself, Shion focused her attention back on the drunk Allen in front of her. Rolling her eyes, she sighed. Why did she always have to get herself stuck in this type of mess? Guiding Allen into the room, she closed the door behind him and brought him to clean himself up. It was difficult trying to get Allen to wash his face as he seemed more interested in splashing the water all over the place, and he enjoyed shouting "rubber ducky!" at random intervals for no apparent reason. Shion sighed again, a nice evening gone to waste just like that...it really wasn't worth it.

It was some time before she finally managed to get Allen to take a rest and not spout anymore nonsense. Dragging him across the floor, Shion managed to get him partially into bed and she sat at a chair not too far away. Looking across at Allen's still body bathed in the moonlight, Shion wondered if she had been mistreating him. Though she knew she couldn't be held culpable for him endangering his life since he chose to, and she had not forced him to it; she felt somewhat guilty for him not being able to lead the normal, peaceful life that he wanted to. Yet, remembering his personality, Shion's guilt somehow ebbed away. A person of such cowardice deserved to be put through trials, only then could he learn to be stronger. It would be better for him when he pursued girls in the future as well. No one would like a coward as their boyfriend after all. Still, it was her fault...wasn't it?

Shion looked away, she did not like having to bear guilt for anything. Already, she was feeling remorseful enough about KOS-MOS' plight, that she was being treated like nothing more than a mere tool to be used; Kevin, if he were still alive, would surely be upset with her. Yet, was Kevin still alive? Shion let her thoughts wander. Her memory brought up the Red Testament, that voice that she heard...it was unmistakably Kevin's. As much as she had wanted him to be alive and guiding her again, she did not want him to be alive as a Testament. As far as she knew, the Testaments wouldn't be what she considered good people. After all, the fight at the Omega system wasn't the first time the Testaments had endangered their lives. It was painful to think of Kevin as someone who wanted to hurt her.

"Miyuki," Allen muttered suddenly in his sleep, interfering with Shion's thoughts. "Stop pushing me, I don't wanna tell Shion that I lo-"

Shion never did manage to hear the full version of what Allen wanted to say, because just at that moment, there was a knock on the door, followed by Miyuki's voice informing Shion that she had arrived to fetch Allen and apologise for the trouble she had caused.

A/N: Thanks to those who like this story and are supporting it, I promise I'll write a complete story this time and not leave it hanging in mid-air like I did with all my previous fanfiction! I'll probably get back to those next time when I have the time. Anyway, hope you guys like this chapter and the shifting of viewpoint from Albedo to Shion. Reviews are most welcome and very much appreciated. Thanks! I'll most probably have my chapters about this length from now onwards, and please read my next chapter as well, which will most probably be from the viewpoint of either Chaos or Rubedo. Thanks!


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